“Wife and boys.” Higgs fought the faint expression of amusement in the corners of his mouth. “She’s to look after the youngster, and Cullen takes over running the ranch.”
Drum’s skin prickled cold. “He did that. Left those no-count boys and a runaway wife . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t believe it.” He knew they hadn’t seen eye to eye on things, but to leave it all outside the family this way. Was he drinking? Drum felt the flush of anger move up his legs, spread through his torso and along his arms, and threaten to choke off his breath. He fought to keep it from flooding his brain, making him do things he’d regret. He had to get out of here, go home, and consider his next steps carefully, away from Higgs’s prying eyes.
He pulled open the door and hurried outside, passing Cullen, who lounged against the fence post bordering the yard. “Let’s go,” Drum ordered.
“Cullen.” From the doorway Higgs said the boy’s name loud enough that Drum glared at him. “You want to come inside a minute, son? I got something to tell you.”
“Come on, damn it.” Drum jerked his horse’s reins loose from the hitching rail. Used to his master’s impatience, the big spotted gelding stood, iron jawed and unblinking as the man tightened the cinch with short, hard pulls.
“I’m gonna see what he wants,” Cullen said, already halfway up the steps to the house.
“Get back here!” Drum raised his quirt as if he could strike the boy from that distance, and the horse shied, aware that it might be the recipient of the blow. Cullen sneered at him and disappeared into the house, letting the door slam loud enough to spook the spotted horse.
“Hold still, you ignorant son of a bitch.” Although his words were rage filled, Drum kept his voice and body quiet so the horse wouldn’t shy and buck away. How was it that nobody was listening to him today? “I’ll settle with that boy later,” he muttered, all the while wondering whether it wasn’t a little late for that now that Cullen was taller, faster, and meaner than his grandfather. Those days of beating sense into the boy were over. Now it was time to see what took and what didn’t. The cussedness of J.B. giving the ranch over about knocked Drum off his horse. The wife would want to sell it, and Drum would have to come up with ready cash he didn’t have unless he raided his gold stash again, and that was a dangerous proposition. Why couldn’t his son have just died and let his father take over? They never had a need for lawyers and such. No high-falutin judge had ever put his thieving fingers in the family business and come out rich. Not until now. Next thing he knew, that damn wife of J.B.’s would sneak back and lay claim to everything. His threats wouldn’t hold much water now with J.B. gone. A thought crossed his mind that made him so uncomfortable he shook his head and cursed. He hoped to God he didn’t have to sink so low as to kill a woman.
“Damn you, son, what the hell were you thinking? How’d you go and get yourself shot anyways?” Drum put the horse into its running walk, the one that ate miles as if they were inches and stayed easy on his back.
It dawned on him slowly, spreading a smile across his face even as the horse sidestepped to avoid a prairie dog hole. He settled his seat again and gave the animal its head. Yes, Higgs would need his help convincing the men. No reason a man shouldn’t go and help his grandsons and his son’s widow. One thing continued to bother him during the ride home, though: Why was J.B. so unforgiving about his taking Cullen to be raised? Drum had gotten over it, as he guessed his own father had. It was what they did with first sons, took them to be raised right, like the old Greeks, the Spartans, so they’d grow to be men who could last, men who’d stand in a fight. Drum remembered his own cousins, how shiftless they turned out, running off to fight for the wrong side in the war, getting themselves kilt with a bunch of border raiders in Missouri. Drum’s great-grandfather drank himself into steady decline until he swole up like a pillow, turned yellow, and died in the front porch rocker his father had made when their people first came to the Missouri Ozarks. It was Drum who pushed west to the Sand Hills of Nebraska and used his gold to buy as much land as he could before anyone else found out about the place.
Drum stopped at the windmill that marked the end of J.B.’s land and the beginning of his, where his son had been murdered. The cattle had trampled the grass into sand, and only the water tank kept the place from blowing out. The wind was a low, steady hum in his ears, but he could still make out the bellering of a cow to her calf beyond the nearest hill. His horse pricked up its ears and snorted, shifting its weight back and forth between its front legs. Drum lifted the reins and the horse broke into a lope, heading for the noise.
While the rest of the herd grazed their way up the next hill, a brown-and-white cow paced frantically in front of a small blowout, where her calf churned its legs in a futile attempt to stand on the dissolving surface. The calf’s sides were heaving wet and its tongue hung outside its mouth, but it wouldn’t give up. Drum hoped the cow wouldn’t charge him as a threat to her baby. He untied his rope, built a loop, and edged the horse closer. But as soon as the rope settled around the calf’s neck, the cow charged his horse, butting him with her head so hard the horse lost its balance and went down, rolling on Drum’s leg before he could free himself from the stirrups. The cow ducked away and stared at the spectacle from some distance while the calf on the end of the taut line, still fastened to the saddle, fought the rope cutting off its breath.
Drum’s leg was numb as the horse lay on top of him, and for a moment he was content to stay there, not wanting to know what lay beneath the numbness. Then he swore and slapped the horse’s neck. “Get off me!” It rolled onto its belly, propped its front legs straight, and raised its hind end with a big lurch. When it was on its feet again, it gave a whole-body shake like a dog and looked down at its rider, who had managed to slip his boot out of the stirrup just in time.
“Hold on. I’m coming.” Drum sat and looked at his boot toe turned unnaturally inward. Then the pain swept up his leg and nearly flattened him.
“Damn it all to hell!” He began a long string of curses at the broken ankle. The cow started bellering again, drawing his attention to the calf choking to death on the end of the rope the horse pulled taut as it had been trained to do but wouldn’t half the time. Now, of course, the damn jughead decided to do as it was told.
Drum searched for something to use as a crutch, but without trees in the hills, there weren’t any fallen limbs or sticks. He considered the tall dried stems of the soapweed around him, but they wouldn’t hold his weight, and he couldn’t afford another fall.
The cow pawed the ground like she meant to charge the horse and man again. Drum struggled to drag his pistol from the holster he wore on rides into the hills. He’d shoot her if she tried to pull another stunt like that.
“Get away!” he shouted at her and waved his arms. The horse rolled its eye and tossed its head. “Not you, you damn fool,” he crooned to the horse. He wanted to put a bullet in him, too. “Ease up, now, easy,” he coaxed. The horse miraculously obeyed, and stepped forward to slacken the rope.
Drum’s next maneuver was the real test. He tucked the shooting pain from his foot in a corner of his jaw, like a plug of stale tobacco, and dragged himself to the horse with a steady stream of words so the animal kept its mind on business. As soon as he was under the stirrup, he pulled himself upright, almost falling down again when his foot accidentally swept the resistance of the grass and new pain roared up his leg and burst in his head. But he fought it, as his grandfather had trained him to do with repeated beatings. “Don’t you show a thing,” he muttered.